Monkeypox continues to spread across the globe and across the United States. Current estimates from the CDC (which are likely undercounted) show almost 5200 cases in the United States, and that number continues to rise.
Because of the rise in cases, Governor Kathy Hochul has declared the state of New York a "disaster emergency," and over the weekend, the New York City Health Department declared monkeypox a Public Health Emergency.
While public health experts continue to try to educate the public about monkeypox, there is still a lot of confusion. You just have to check out any monkeypox forum on reddit (if you're interested in reading stories about people's experiences, go to r/monkeypoxpositive) or search Twitter or TikTok for monkeypox content, and you'll see dozens of stories about doctors not recognizing monkeypox or telling patients there's no way they could have it, or stories of people not being able to access testing or vaccines.
Obviously, Boing Boing isn't a public health site, but I sometimes try to share helpful information. In that spirit, here's a new piece published by Insider that explains and illustrates what monkeypox looks like compared with other conditions that can cause skin rashes. And here's a helpful document that provides information on what to do if you think you have monkeypox. It includes suggestions for managing pain and symptoms, crowdsourced by folks who have experienced monkeypox. It also provides links to other resources to help with accessing medication, vaccines, and more.
